Back when we had 13 channels, Mom used to say: "Don't sit so close,you'll ruin your eyes." I wonder what she'd say about the Internet...

Thursday, March 25, 2010

How the study of religion social media...

This week, the Alumni Association of Smith College is hosting A Century of Women in Type: A Conference for Smith Women in Media. I've been asked to be on a panel on blogging and new media, for which I'm truly honored. But it's got me thinking about my major--Religion and Biblical Literature--and how the academic study of religion relates to a deeper understanding of social media....

The academic study of religion is certainly not what many people think: it is nothing like Catholic school religious education, or any other belief system's authorized "kiddie" education. That kind of education is usually about dogmas, how to worship properly, and how to put together the right defense of a faith. Rather, the academic study pushes one to think critically about religions of the world, not just about one's own faith, and how those beliefs have shaped the history and cultures of the civilizations from which they emerged.

But that academic study of religion is also about trends that emerged to shape and re-direct the beliefs and the prevailing culture. It's about movements like the Iconoclast Controversy of the Byzantine Empire and the Reformation. In the study of religion, one learns how so many of these movements started at the "grassroots" and often appealed to the zeitgeist of the times. I always think of Martin Luther, and how he wanted to have the Bible published in the vernacular, not just Latin, so that the "common folk" could read it.....

Now, so many of the people I know see the various forms of self-publishing on the Internet as akin to the emergence of the printing press. Rather, it's not the Internet itself that is akin to the printing press. Self-publishing is more akin to Luther's ideal of the Bible in the vernacular....

Think about it: what, actually, is "citizen journalism" if it isn't putting the tools (and even principles) of journalism in the hands of The People? If one thinks of it this way, all those downsized journalists and concerned citizens who've started hyperlocal sites are like little Martin Luthers, publishing their own hyperlocal Bibles in their vernaculars.....

Think, too, about marketing: in marketing, the discussions have evolved around creating product "evangelists"--people who will go out and spread the word about the goodness of a product. Apple computer has some of the most ardent "evangelists"--people who are loyal to Apple and will always talk about the goodness of Apple products.

Praise the Jobs and hallelujah!

Community building is also an integral part of the social media experience. It is also a major part of the religious experience as well. And this is something that runs through almost all faiths and across all cultures. How we build these communities, why we build them, is as important in social media as it is in religion...

How odd....

So, the academic study of religion has enabled me to understand how people across centuries have changed their basic beliefs when emerging trends have resonated with them, and where the evangelism was strong. Because I spend most of my time in the thick of social media (and not in post-grad religious studies) it is easy for me then to see where trends in social media are emerging, and how they emerge: how a group of "apostles" can create "evangelists" who will proselytize for a product or service or way of thinking , and if that particular thing resonates with The People, it will flourish (kind of like the Doctrine of Predestination among the burghers of Geneva.) I can see into how the philosophies of social media are fashioned, and how those ways of thinking can be used to foster communities. I see, too, how communities are important to the survival of social media--because humans are social, and communities are like the bedrock of any belief, whether that is a belief in a product, or service, or in Something Much, Much Greater than Ourselves.